Our Linux packaging options includes:

1. Native .deb packages for Debian and Ubuntu LTO releases on amd64/x86_64.
2. Flatpak/x86_64 packages for other Linux distributions including non-LTO Ubuntu releases
3. Flatpak/aarch64 packages targeting Raspberry Pie 4 and similar high-end platforms.
4. Native .deb packages for Raspbian/armhf.

Although there are exceptions the community's ambition is to build plugins for all of these platforms.

Note that there are no plans for direct support of the various OS:es used on RPi-4 (aarch64) systems, Flatpak is the only supported packaging for these.

We have been testing the Flatpak packages during the 5.2.0 cycle. To summarize, we see no performance hit compared to native packages. The compatibility with various distributions is also good. However, there are large downloads involved, especially if OpenCPN is the only Flatpak application on the system.